Puestos de trabajo Associate, Malaria Research, Honduras

Founded in 2002, by President William J. Clinton and Ira Magaziner, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. ("CHAI"ÂÂ) is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems and expanding access to care and treatment in the developing world.

Malaria is one of the world's most important causes of illness, death, and lost economic productivity. Over the past decade, dramatic increases in donor funding have facilitated scale-up of effective interventions to prevent, diagnosis, and treat malaria. This investment has successfully reduced the burden of malaria in many settings, and some countries have begun planning to eliminate it altogether. Yet these gains are fragile: global funding for malaria remains short of what is needed, last decade's rapid growth in malaria financing appears to have halted, and resistance to insecticides and drugs threatens to set back efforts. The great majority of the growth in funding for malaria programs has come from potentially volatile international donors rather than from domestic contributions, making the sustainability of recent gains an open question.

Several countries in the Mesoamerica and Hispaniola region have committed to eliminate malaria by 2020. To reach this target, countries will need to rapidly detect and effectively treat infections, to identify and aggressively target areas where malaria transmission persists, and to coordinate efforts closely to ensure movements of people and parasites do not jeopardize success. Achievement of this goal across the region will bring the world one step closer to global malaria eradication. Over the past two and half years, CHAI has helped malaria programs make meaningful steps towards orienting their national strategic plans and systems towards malaria elimination by 2020. CHAI is supporting malaria programs in Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, Haiti, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, and Belize to strengthen surveillance systems, devise targeted and evidence-based plans, successfully implement these plans and interventions, and scale-up interventions in high-risk and hard-to-reach populations.

Overview of Role:

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual with strong public health experience and analytical skills to support surveillance, analytics, and operational activities related to malaria elimination efforts in Honduras. The Associate will focus primarily on supporting Honduras's national malaria program by providing analytical and operational assistance with strengthening surveillance systems, planning effective vector control interventions, monitoring and evaluating programs, analysing surveillance data, and other relevant activities for malaria elimination. The individual will work as part of a team providing technical, operational, and managerial support to the government and will interact with a wide range of national stakeholders, necessitating strong communication and organizational skills.

Malaria elimination involves both technical and logistical challenges. The successful candidate will need both to have outstanding analytical skills and be highly skilled at problem-solving, troubleshooting, and relationship building. He/she must have a deep personal commitment to producing results and working independently without daily supervision. CHAI places great value on the resourcefulness, tenacity, patience, humility, and high ethical standards of its staff.

The base location for this position will be Tegucigalpa, Honduras. This role requires travel to higher risk, remote regions with limited infrastructure and medical care.

Responsibilities

Serve as a trusted adviser to the Ministry of Health staff on issues related to surveillance and malaria elimination

Provide analytical support to the National Malaria Program and its Information Management and Surveillance Units to help strengthen information systems and disease surveillance, including improving data collection, data management, analysis, and data visualization

Translate results of analyses to national and sub-national government partners to support evidence-based decision making, and disseminate findings through high-quality presentations, reports, and publications

Update national guidelines and policies to align with global elimination recommendations

Identify key impediments to the successful execution of malaria elimination plans and work with malaria programs and other partners to develop solutions to rapidly address those bottlenecks

Proactively develop and maintain strong working relationships with key stakeholders across government and non-governmental organizations

Develop detailed operational plans, operating procedures, and associated training materials to build government capacity and support effective execution of malaria program

Represent CHAI in external meetings as needed

Qualifications

Master's degree in Public Health or related field

2+ years of relevant work experience

Proven experience in the epidemiological and spatial analysis of disease data, and in conducting/managing epidemiological surveys